Wednesday, September 19, 2012

So this whole UCI thing is a curious accident that I enjoy and fully
appreciate.

This has been an amazing roller coaster ride I truly wish to stay on. And you should join me. It is way better than the Tour de France with a lot less traffic and a lot more access to cycling legends.

For me this started in Tabor, Czech Republic, where I announced the
cyclo-cross worlds in 2010. I arrived in the frigid but fantastic town thrilled
but intimidated by the formality of the UCI. Let’s face it, announcing in the states
is a back woods affair where the announcer sort of wings it.

This would be a formal event with exact protocol. So they
had me attend a rehearsal for the awards ceremony. This came with a chart and a
diagram that had all sorts of dotted lines and arrows and exact
instructions.

I responded much like I had when I first sat in high school
chemistry with Mr. Terlinksy and stared at a diagram about logarithms. I glazed over.

There I stood in the cold Soviet athletic facility next to
my colleague, Heinrich, a smoking, bearded, heavier version of the Dos Equis world’s most
interesting man, looking at this chart. The delightful UCI woman spoke mostly French.
Heinrich spoke Czech. I spoke English. And just to help us all out, they assigned
us another delightful woman who spoke Czech and German….

Huh?

I figured it out as I have now on six occasions. Be nice,
smile, show up on time, and then use the one American universal mechanism to
make people like you: slapstick.

I stumble, I trip, I pretend to have my eye poked out…all
with great effect. I have done so in German, Danish, Czech, Flemish, French and
Dutch. It works with security, police, children, racers, officials and timing
crew. Just about everybody likes it....except old ladies; but they’ve been on to me for years,
regardless of culture. I almost married such a woman who was 30 going on 69.

So I sauntered into this year’s awards ceremony rehearsal with a
little swagger. And I brought along 9-year-old Ryjder Hessenfeld along with his
dad, Ted. We hung around a bit and then we met the Dutch announcer, a legendary man,
Cees Maas…or Kees Maas, depending on the translation. I will write about him
later on, but let us just say, I am out of my league with him.

But all we have to do is the awards rehearsal. It is all
about the podium girls, the sound guys, and presenters, and not about the
experienced professional announcers, right?

We knocked out the individual awards rehearsal without
problem.

Then we had to think. For the first time in recent memory we would be hosting
a team time trial awards ceremony with six riders racing for trade teams. Think
about it….

The presenter needs six bronze medals…..

Then the next presenter needs six bouquets of flowers….

On to silver….

Then to gold…

And how big of a podium do we need for 18 athletes plus
three directors? (We even had 18 stand
ins, including Theodore Essenfeld and his son, Ryjder.)

Do we hand out six rainbow jerseys? A trophy? Belt buckles?

Oh yeah, it is trade teams…with riders from several
different countries. So what national anthem do we play? We decide to play the anthem
from the country where the team is registered…which is curious should Radio
Shack win, given this team from Luxembourg does not have one rider on its team
from Luxembourg riding.

I do not in any way mean to ridicule this process. This is why we hold rehearsals for such seemingly trivial affairs. If we
sweat the details now, you folks on Sunday will inhale in awe at our pomp and
ceremony.

So figure that all out. On to race day.....

We pound through the ceremony for
team time trial without incident, fortunate that Radio Shack did not win.

Mind you I am stumbling a bit through some of the protocol
changes from prior years. And there is always some confusion with the flag guys
(think about it, we need flags for more than 70 countries and what would happen
if Morocco swept the podium?), and the sound guy who needs to have access to
the national anthems of 76 nations including Andorra (…..who has the national
anthem of Andorra?) and the podium girls and the medal guy and the flower
guy.Am I getting to you?

And it is all on global television. Mind you the sound guy
is frantic when the Russian wins….Because in scrolling down the CD of national
anthems, given to him by the French woman, he cannot find “Russia.”

This is a holy shit moment…..

We are back stage reading, and
re-reading this CD label and I am thinking about how China and Japan are about
to go to war over an island I did not know existed two weeks ago…Or that four
fine Americans were killed in Libya over a movie no American I know has ever
seen. Then I thought about the Czech uprising in 1968 which was sparked by
what? A hockey game in which the Czechs beat the Russians.

If we could not find the Russian national anthem, I
envisioned all the progress of the last 20 years dissolving….. and tanks rolling back into Eastern Europe.

….Then I found it…..”Federation of Russia” is under “F” not “R.”
Crisis avoided, no?

Sort of.

During the ceremony, and you may see this on TV to the left
of your screen, a television camera operator follows the presenter on stage
with the camera hand held for the bronze medal. The UCI staff, some of the nicest guys I know,
intervene. And they hold the cable to ensure the camera will not go back out
center stage.

“You don’t go out
there.”

“Let go of my equipment”

“You don’t go out there.”

“Let go of my equipment.”

Enter security.

Voices were raised.

Announcers tried to conduct awards ceremony.

Fists were clenched.

Day glow vests shoved.

Orange jackets converged.

Cameras turned away from ceremony to controversy.

Athletes looked confused.

Announcers tried to conduct awards ceremony.

……We endured a serious moment of détente.

And then….

"Ladies and Gentlemen," I said. "May we have your attention for the playing of the national anthem The Federation of Russia"

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

OK, I am writing this from the Netherlands. For too many of
my friends (and probably myself up until one week ago) knowledge of this
country stopped at Austin Powers’ Goldmember.

OK, I knew more than that.

But when trying to understand just about any other culture,
start with a map. Maps help one understand all sorts of issues: cultural,
economic, linguistic, and athletic.

So open up a map of The Netherlands and then we will
continue. Go on…..I will wait…….

…………..

Good, you are back.

Try to follow along. Copenhagen, where I worked last year, is a city; Limburg is not. Limburg is a
province of the Netherlands. It dangles down between Germany to the East and
Belgium to the west, like a Dutch epiglottis. OK, that helps to explain a
little bit of language. Dutch is sort of German with a filter. And Flemish is
sort of Dutch with a French filter. And then you have the English and those
whacky Scandinavians coming through on occasion.

Weirder still is that Spain actually ran the Netherlands for
a while until a) the Dutch simply could not stand being so uptight about sex,
and b) the Brits scored one of the biggest upsets in naval history in 1588.
Somewhere in there is the story of why these folks wear the color orange. (Go read, it is awesome stuff.)

Cyclists today view Holland as a cycling utopia. But there
are different reasons. For my advocate friends, much is made of Amsterdam and
its massive amount of mode share by bike.Indeed the Dutch embrace cycling as well as anybody. It is
fantastic.

But those into the sport of cycling will rally around
Maastricht and Limburg, the province. Get out your map. Look at the proximity
to Belgium and such cities as Liege. It is right there.All the great cyclo-cross, Amstel Gold, and
everything else that is fantastic about Dutch racing. Just to the south in
Germany is Aken. To the west in Belgium is Hasselt and to the south is Liege.

But part of it I discovered while driving from Brussels to
Maastricht, taking in all the flat landscape.

And then you drop into the valley of the Meure, or the Maas
(as the river is called in Dutch), and the terrain changes. The Limburg region
is defined by fertile plains with these pronounced ridges.

I discovered these on my first day here riding with Theodore
Essenfeld and his son, Ryjder, who is 9.I was on a 52 cm bike but enjoying being outside (typically I ride a
55). After puttering about on the bike paths we worked our way towards
Valkenburg, where I had a rehearsal for awards.

En route we encountered the cyclo-sportive, with 7,000
riders. Wow. We followed the group. We ended up on a bike path that gouged into
these ravines with sharp, overgrown cliffs to our right. There were chalk caves
in which I learned the Dutch resistance used during World War II to hide. As a
history nut, I drank it in. As a cyclist, I got it. I saw cyclo-cross courses
and mountain bike trails and roads woven throughout.

And this, I would learn, is only in the Limburg province.

We came into Valkenburg. Whistles blew and paddles waved.

Wow. Team Rabobank came roaring through the turn on their
practice TTT ride. Later came Movistar.

And we were rolling through the final turn before the
Cauberg, the climb that leads to the finish of the Amstel Gold race. With
thousands of riders on the road, I scaled the Caubergwith this 9-year old boy. The crowds were
already clapping and this boy got extra applause.

By New England standards, the Cauberg is a pussy climb. But
with a Pro Tour field going up this thing at 40 km/hour to finish I can only imagine the suffering it
inflicts. And there are dozens of them in the Limburg region. And after scaling
several of them in the 100k leading into the finish circuit on Sunday, the pro
men will then go up the Cauberg 10 times.Oh yeah, there is another climb, the Bemelberg, on the backstretch.

Did I mention that I have had fantastic weather? If the North
Sea thinks otherwise, this place can be a crosswind cool zone of mist and rain.
I love the lowlands the way I love New England.

Everybody, from the pro cyclists to the postal worker to the old lady to the 12-year-old school
girl has something others lack: resolve.

Geography does this.

This world championship is ambitious. There is just one
finish venue in Valkenburg. But there are six different start venues: Sittard,
Landgraf, Eijsden, Heerlen (where Eddy Merckx beat Jan Janssen in 1967 to win
his first of three world titles), Valkenburg and then Maastricht.

The Eneco Tour, The Tour of Limburg, the Valkenberg
Cyclocross, the Amstel Gold Race and of course this World Championships, the
sixth time the UCI has selected this province to host its grandest ball.

But this entire region is dripping in cycling history that
the American charity ride fans will miss by going to l’Alpe d’Huez. I stumble
about…..there is Jan Jaansen,there is
Henni Kuiper, Leontien Van Moorsel, Jan Raas, Peter Post, and Leo Van Vliet…Will
I see Joop Zoetelmelk? How cool is a country that names a guy “Joop”?

Like losing my iPad, something about foreign travel makes us
stupid and awkward and alone. Whenever I travel abroad for these UCI gigs I
feel like a kid who has just moved into a new town and starting school for the
first day. On the outside it all looks good…Like I got it going on… But inside
one simply feels out of place.

The UCI folks are getting to know, and like, me. But it
remains a cautious thing.

I love travel to Europe and other cultures. And I love
traveling alone. But I hate being lonely. This would be fun if I had a friend
or my family along.Because I have to
work eight straight days, I must hole up in rooms alone. First I must preserve
my voice, which is to profession whata
hand is to a pitcher’s profession: everything. And because of the language
barriers – although everybody speaks English the nuances of the language are
lost – I end up alone a lot. This makes me come off as introverted, which most
will tell you I am not.

At the end of each day I get unsolicited advice on how to
fix my voice.

Tea with lemon.

Hot water with olive oil…

Hot water with salt.

Tea with honey.

Halls….Vicks….you name it, they’ve suggested it. It is not
my first rodeo. What works is this:

Throat Coat tea from Traditional Medicinals, which contains
slippery elm.Also I stop drinking beer
but take in a glass or two of Grand Marnier. I hydrate with water constantly.
And sleep is really important. Most important is that I simply avoid loud bars
and restaurants and instead do thinks like long, long walks or bike rides.

But I had struggled going in to this event.A combination of August allergies, a sinus
infection, and a dental problem fostered some problems with my voice. I simply
could not recover as usual. A visit to the dentist revealed a broken tooth,
which got me some antibiotics. The voice improved but would it be enough to
handle eight straight days of announcing at the world championships?

Let’s find out, eh?

I nailed day one, the team time trial. Then the reparation
began. Riding the hotel bike 10k back to the hotel is a start. No talking. Then
I started the constant rehydration.Whilst trying to type this, I got drowsy. I rode for 90 minutes on the
hotel bike, simply touring Maastricht, before fishing up with pad thai.
Everything is done alone. No talking. I return to the room alone. I stay alone.
I checked e-mail and then fell to sleep at 9:30. I would sleep for 10 hours,
which truly may have been the most important ingredient.

And I got to the venue for day two solid. No problems and
actually better than day two.This is
how I will mow down the entire eight-day gig.

But day three proved interesting. I awoke without the alarm…having
slept miraculously again….and got ready for my favorite part of European lodging,
the breakfast.I was so ready for those
funny looking meats, the eggs, the cheese, the cappuccino and of course the
pompelmousse juice.

As I sifted through my clothes with the blinds drawn I
remembered having heard my phone, which is also my alarm, shutting off in the
night. I had gotten up to charge it but neglected to turn it on. While brushing
my teeth I sauntered over and turned on the phone…..

9:25!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Holy shit the junior women were to start at 10 a.m.!!!!!! “
I thought. “Or was it 9?”

I flew down the stairs sliding on shoes and buttoning shirts
and charged to the bike rack. I grabbed bike 2365 and pounded towards
Vanderburg. Whirred through roundabouts
with my foot down as an outrigger, and then charged towards the hill. I climbed
at a pace as stern as any race I had entered.I topped off the hill and shifted up for the final 2 k to the event.

I flipped out the phone….9:49 a.m. as I entered the Tissot
booth.I had ridden 7 km on a hotel bike
with a Shimano Nexus 7 speed uphill in 19 minutes. I was blown…..But relieved
to learn the race started at 10:30.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Limburg 2012, Day One
First there will be no apostrophes in these reports.
Why, you ask?
This is coming to you via my aging HP Thunderclap. Instead of impressively tapping it on the Bluetooth keyboard and iPad, I am boxing on the broken keys. Actually the letter o and k have no keys. In my sleep transatlantic haze, I left my iPad on the plane.
I discovered this 120 km later in Maastricht. So instead of typing out my blog, I spent the day frantically trying to reach United and/or Brussels Airways, which manages its baggage. No, they did not respond. Gone.
Sucks.
But Holland is fantastic. I arrived under a dull spitting sky to find a lackluster venue next to a construction site. Frankly the Lowlands of Belgium and Holland always present a gray curtain as their stage; you must learn to pull them back to start the show.
I caught up on e-mail and then napped.
When I awoke I had no sense of time. Neither my laptop nor phone were updating the time. But the sun remained up so I figured it to be around 3 p.m. So I did what has become routine in Europe: I rented a hotel bike.
Within 100 meters I rolled under the highway interchange and onto the Fietsnetwork of bike lanes and into the core of the city. Masstricht is a fantastic city tightly woven around the Maas River, downstream from Liege in nearby Belgium. This would be recon ride, getting my bearings: train station, restaurants, bike shops…and then how to get back. The bike costs about 7 euros and I hoped to go back out after I exchanged money and checked on my work schedule. I ended up checking e-mail; when I looked up rain had started slashing on the window. I turned the bike in and returned for more Internet lull.
Later I walked about looking for food before I realized with all the jet lag and latitudinal difference it was like 11:45. The place was evacuating by bike; all sorts of couples lazily tumbled the pedals, side-by-side, brushing each other’s hands, smoking or texting as they rode. It is about 20 percent pedestrians, 40 percent cars, and 40 percent bikes. And they ride without helmets comfortably through a city made for all three to get along. No horns. No anger. No more fanfare than we might find at a coffee shop at 8:30 a.m. Everybody is courteous and quiet.
I found no restaurants opened. After walking an hour I returned to the hotel bar to find my UCI staff. Marching orders for Day 2. Lots more to come.